MBOMBELA – Sibisi, a survivor of gender-based violence, labelled some pastors and prophets as rapists and abusers. “There are girls who are being raped at church by the prophets and pastors. There are women who have children with pastors who cannot be accounted for because they can’t speak out.
“There are husbands who have lost their wives to pastors because certain pastors, especially from the churches that I have been to, capture the wives and cause divisions in their homes and then they take over,” said Sibisi. She was speaking during the gender-based violence session, organised by the Ehlanzeni District Municipality, on Monday night.
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“At the age of 16, I was given to the church and I stayed in a mission house belonging to it. I was introduced to a life of promiscuity within the church.
The prophet would come up to the room, see girls naked while bathing. “We mastered the art of deception and manipulation at a very young age because you’d see the prophet raping girls in front of you, but when we went to church the next day we had to pretend that we’re holy and everything was fine,” she continued. It was after her traumatic experiences at various churches that she decided to launch the Kwanele Mfundisi Movement aimed at giving a voice to the voiceless within churches.
“This campaign is for people, not just women but men as well, who have suffered at the hands of pastors. Those men who have given up their homes, who have lost their families because of pastors and prophets.
“When I began speaking out, we were surprised that all of us are going through the same thing. There are many people who are coming out, who are saying thank you for opening our eyes.
There are many men, women and children who are coming out and are saying ‘Kwanele Mfundisi’,” she stressed. Executive mayor, Cllr Jesta Sidell said the killing of women and children is a worrisome fact which needs everyone’s involvement to tackle and so we can eventually be victorious.
“As a district municipality, we can’t sit by and watch our women and children being molested, raped and killed every day. We saw it important for us to join the many voices out there that are speaking against the scourge of gender-based violence. We say it is enough for us to be faced with the Covid-19 pandemic that we really can’t afford to lose focus in terms of supporting our communities and ensuring that they are all safe during this trying time. It is for these reasons that as a district we support and appreciate any efforts to fight this new pandemic of gender-based violence.
“We appreciate the development of an ICT app that is being designed by Phepha Africa. It will be used by our women and children to help gather and record much-needed evidence for our police and courts for successful prosecutions against perpetrators of gender-based violence,” said Sidell.
With regard to this new pandemic, she said, “We are very angry and really need to channel our anger towards responding to this challenge. And we want to respond to this challenge by making a call to all local municipalities led by the executive mayors to follow what the district has started in terms of us adopting a gender-based strategy. It seeks to encourage our women to come forward and speak about these incidents they are experiencing in their respective homes and lives.
We are now made aware that they suffer such violent acts even from churches and we do get stories that church leaders are molesting our children and abusing women. We need to act, and act now!”
